Introducing Belmond's Royal Scotsman
cruise train...

The Royal Scotsman is Scotland's
very own
luxury cruise train, offering 2, 3, 4, 5 or 7 night tours of the Scottish Highlands.
Run by Belmond, the new name for the Orient-Express Group who also run the
famous
Venice Simplon-Orient-Express
and equally luxurious
Eastern & Oriental Express,
the Belmond Royal Scotsman sets
the same top-end standards of service, accommodation & cuisine. They aim to
create the atmosphere of a Scottish 5-star country house hotel, and
they succeed. The 9-coach train carries a maximum of only 36 passengers
with a passenger to staff ratio of just 3:1, so it does indeed feel very exclusive.
Having experienced the Royal Scotsman, I have to say that it's a pretty unbeatable combination
of superb scenery on Britain's most amazing train routes, country-house
all-inclusive luxury with great food, wine & service plus some extremely
well-chosen off-train excursions. A trip on the Royal Scotsman doesn't
come cheap, but if it's a special occasion or a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
to see a lot of Scotland in a very short time,
you really won't be disappointed. This page will give you the low-down on
the whole Belmond Royal Scotsman experience...

The Belmond Royal Scotsman operates from
April to October, offering a 2-night Highland tour, a 3-night Western tour or a
4-night Highland Classic tour.

You can combine the 3-night Western
with either the 2-night Highland or 4-night Highland Classic to make a 5 or 7 night
'Grand tour'.

All Belmond Royal Scotsman tours start in
Edinburgh and beautifully showcase the history, culture & scenery of the
Scottish Highlands.

Prices start at around £2,350 per
person for the 2-night Highland, £3,440 for the 3-night Western, or £4,330 for
the 4-night Highland Classic, based on two people sharing.

Belmond Royal Scotsman prices include all meals,
alcoholic & non-alcoholic drinks, on-board accommodation & off-train excursions
such as (depending on the tour) a guided tour of a whisky distillery, clay
pigeon shooting on a Scottish laird's estate, a visit to a highland woollen
mill.

Boarding the Belmond Royal Scotsman in Edinburgh...

Follow the piper! You check in at
the Edinburgh Waverley station first class lounge for
tea or
coffee. When the train is ready for boarding,
follow the piper to the
platform where the train is waiting.

The
red carpet treatment... The Drum Major
pipes you aboard, and there's time to settle into your
compartment before finding an armchair in the
lounge-observation car for departure...

The lounge-observation car...

This is the social hub of the train, located either
at the rear or (for some parts of the trip) immediately behind the locomotive.
The lounge has
armchairs, sofas, coffee tables, a bar serving tea & coffee, alcoholic &
non-alcoholic drinks (all included in the price, just ask), and best of all
there's an open-air observation
platform, great for photography. The day's activities, timetable & menus
are posted in the carriage vestibule. The bar carries some 30 different types of Scottish
whisky, from the stronger west coast whiskies like Lagavulin, Talisker or Oban to the smoother eastern malts
like Dalwhinnie. You might not get through all 30, but with some suitable
suggestions and guidance from the train manager and you may well find yourself
doing some... er... interesting research...

Just about
to leave Edinburgh, and the champagne is already
starting to flow... This is the lounge car, looking
towards the open-air viewing platform.

The observation car, in a siding at Keith between
Inverness & Aberdeen. Guest rejoin the train here
after visiting Johnston's woollen mill in Elgin.

Your private stateroom...

Your wood-panelled stateroom
includes two single beds (there are a few single rooms with one bed) and all the
facilities of a good (though compact) hotel room: Small en suite shower &
toilet, desk, table, wardrobe, tissues, mineral water, bathrobe & slippers,
writing paper, soap, fluffy towels, shampoo & shower gel.
The train is always stabled in a siding or quiet platform for the night, so you
don't have to sleep on the move. The cars were specially rebuilt as 'hotel
cars' for the Belmond Royal Scotsman from 1960s Pullman seating cars. You can find
more information about the history of the Belmond Royal Scotsman train
here.

Twin room, looking towards the
small en suite...

The same room, seen from the en suite...

The dining experience...

The Belmond Royal Scotsman has two
dining cars, Raven with a long central table & 16 seats, and Victory
with conventional restaurant car tables offering 20 seats. Victory dates from 1945 making it the oldest car on the train. The meals and
well-chosen wines are all included in the price. The food is cooked on
board in the train's tiny kitchen, and it's excellent. At least one dinner on each
tour is 'formal', so remember to bring your dinner jacket!

The restaurant
car, with tables for 2 or 4. Places are not allocated,
you can sit where you like...

A
personal favourite - fresh Scottish kippers for breakfast...

Off-train excursions...

Each Belmond Royal Scotsman tour includes several
well-chosen off-train excursions, which vary depending on which tour you choose.
Be warned, the clay pigeon shooting is addictive... Tea & coffee followed afterwards at
the big house, where you may even get to meet the Laird. In the evening over
after-dinner drinks in the lounge car, you
may be privileged to listen to
Highlander Ray Owens
talk about 17th century Highland Life, which he can bring alive like no-one
else.

Clay pigeon shooting...

A whisky distillery tour...

A visit to a Scottish
woollen mill...

The scenery...

If you drive around the Highlands,
the winding single-track roads of childhood memory
have sadly been replaced across much of the countryside
by wide straight 60mph concrete highways blasted thoughtlessly through the landscape.
The good news is that you can
still see unspoilt Highland countryside from Scotland's railways,
and the train takes you through some of the best scenery in Scotland
(or indeed, in Britain). The most scenic route of all is probably the
West Highland Line from Glasgow to Fort William &
Mallaig, so for sheer remote Highland beauty take the Belmond's Royal Scotsman 3-night Western Tour.
But the Highland Line is also beautiful as the photos below try to show,
and the 2-night Highland tour & 4-night Classic tour also take you across the famous Tay & Forth Bridges between Dundee & Edinburgh.

On this 2-night
Highland tour the Belmond Royal Scotsman left Edinburgh, crossed the famous Forth Bridge,
passed Perth and headed up the Highland Line for a visit to
Dalwhinnie whisky distillery...

The Highland
Line... Wild & remote highland scenery on
the Perth to Inverness 'Highland Line'. This is the line's summit at the Druimuachdar Pass.
At 1,484 feet (452m) it's the
highest point on the whole British rail network.

Mountains, rivers
& valleys.
The open air viewing platform really is a big plus for photographers. After the
distillery visit guests rejoined the train at Boat of Garten on the heritage
Strathspey Railway where the train stabled overnight for dinner and a good night's
sleep...

Next morning a
road coach transferred guests to a country estate for clay pigeon
shooting or country walking, returning to the train for lunch. Here, the
train crosses
the Findhorn Viaduct near Tomatin on the
Highland Line. Just south of Inverness it crosses the viaduct across
Culloden moor, where Bonnie Prince Charlie was finally defeated.

Aperitifs & canapés
before formal dinner... Dalwhinnie 15 year old Single Malt in
hand, time to step out onto the open-air viewing platform in the evening
sun. On the line between Inverness & Aberdeen, the gorse is in full
flower...

Fine dining on the move whilst
passing Scottish scenery is wonderful. This is
farmland between Inverness & Aberdeen. Passing Aberdeen, the train stabled overnight in a quiet platform at Dundee.
Next day, it crossed the famous Tay & Forth Bridges back to Edinburgh...

The Belmond's Royal Scotsman 2-night
Highland & 4-night Highland Classic tours take you over the famous
Tay
Bridge &
Forth Bridge between Dundee & Edinburgh, and these deserve a special
mention. Once the longest & largest
bridges in the world, it's a real privilege to cross them standing on the
Belmond Royal
Scotsman's open-air viewing platform, as you get views and a photo
opportunity that you simply don't get from any regular sealed-in train.
As you can see in the photo below, the stumps of the piers from the first (1878)
Tay Bridge remain visible in the water next to the current (1887) Tay Bridge, a
macabre reminder of the first Tay Bridge which collapsed under a train in a storm
in 1879 with the loss of all 72 passengers on board. The
Tay
Bridge Disaster was immortalised in a poem by
William McGonagall, arguably Scotland's worst poet. The train was
found on the sea bed, still encased in the bridge girders. The locomotive
was found
relatively undamaged and was raised and returned to service. Nicknamed
'The Diver' (it sank twice whilst being salvaged and brought ashore) it was only scrapped in 1937,
but for years no driver would dare take it over the Tay Bridge...

The West Highland line (see the
West Highland Line page) is arguably the most scenic route in
the whole of Britain, so if it's wild, remote Highland scenery you're after, choose
the Royal Scotsman's 3-night Western Tour. If you can only spare 2
nights (3 days), then take the 2-night Highland Tour, as the Highland Line
from Edinburgh via Perth to Inverness is also beautiful, if not quite a wild or
remote, and you'll get to cross the famous Tay & Forth bridge on your return to
Edinburgh. However, their most popular tour is the 4-night Highland
Classic, similar to the Highland tour but with a journey along another
candidate for most scenic route in Britain, the line from Inverness to Kyle of
Lochalsh, just across the water from the Isle of Skye. If you can't decide
and just want to see everything, you can combine the Western with either the
Highland or Highland Classic tours to make a 5 or 7 night trip.

I also suggest also calling train
specialist Railbookers to see if they have any special rates for the Belmond Royal
Scotsman. Railbookers can also arrange any hotels or scheduled train travel that you need to go with it.

Consider these two historic rival
hotels before or after your Royal Scotsman tour, both
luxurious hotels in prime locations, both originally built by railway companies:

The Balmoral Hotel,
an excellent 5-star hotel now run by Rocco Forte. Built in 1902
as the North British Hotel and known locally as the 'NB', this was the North British Railway's prestigious
Edinburgh Hotel, located on Edinburgh's famous Princes Street right next to
Waverley station where the Royal Scotsman departs and where trains from London &
the south arrive. In the 19th & early 20th centuries, the North British
Railway was one of two competing railways linking Scotland with the south,
handling trains to and from London's Kings Cross station via the East Coast
Route via York & Newcastle.

Caledonian Hilton Hotel, 5-star. The Caledonian Railway was the
North British Railway's arch rival, which handled trains via the West Coast
Route to and from London's Euston station via Carlisle and Crewe. In 1903,
the
Caledonian Railway built their own imposing railway hotel at the opposite end of
Princes street, next to their own Princes Street station. The hotel is now
all that's left of Princes Street station, which was closed in 1965, all trains now use
the North British Railway's Edinburgh's Waverley station. This hotel is
about to undergo a £14m refurbishment, and in 2012 will become The Caledonian, a
Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

London to Edinburgh takes only 4½
hours by train, city centre to city centre stress-free, trains run every hour or
better and cost from just £16.50 one-way if you book in advance. The
journey takes you via York, so why not stop in York for a day on the way?
To check train times, fares and to buy tickets online from London or anywhere in
Britain to Edinburgh, see the Beginner's Guide to Train
Travel in Britain.

If you can
afford it, The Belmond Royal Scotsman is a great way to see a lot of Scotland, in luxury,
in a very short time. This is the Royal Scotsman
train stabled for the night at Boat of Garten on the Strathspey
Railway.

Cheers! On the open-air observation platform
before dinner...

A bit of background to the Royal Scotsman train...

The Belmond Royal Scotsman has been running since 1985, when
it was started by two entrepreneurs using an assortment of leased coaches.
It was a success, and this enabled a new purpose built (or rather, purpose
rebuilt) set of Royal Scotsman carriages to be introduced in 1990. Six of
the nine coaches including most of the sleeping-cars, dining-car 'Raven' and the
lounge-observation car, were rebuilt from Pullman seating cars originally built
by Metro-Cammell in Birmingham in 1960 and used on prestige trains on the East
Coast route between London Kings Cross, Leeds, York, Newcastle & Edinburgh.
The coaches' interiors are radically different form their original 1960
interiors, with new Edwardian-style interior wood panelling provided by a
specialist firm in Bournemouth. Dining-car number 2 'Victory' was built in
1945 as an LNER (London & North Eastern Railway) first class carriage, used for
much of its life as a inspection saloon for railway officials. The last
two vehicles (one service & generator car, one crew/sleeper) were built in the
early 1980s as British Rail Mark 3 sleeping-cars. The Royal Scotsman was
acquired by Orient Express Trains Ltd in 2005, and it's now part of their
portfolio of world-class luxury trains.
More details about the Royal Scotsman carriages. The locomotive that
hauls the Royal Scotsman train is contracted from the West Coast Railway Co.
Ltd, and it's usually a ex-British Rail class 47. Dating from the 50s &
60s, class 47s were once the most common mainline diesel in Britain but are now
a rarity.